




& ce OF The | 














BACCALAUREATE SERMON, 


‘By the Rey. MORGAN DIX, §.7.D., D.C.L. 4 


1886. Cee 


@PRINIEY. COLLEGE. « 











4 














Cae ie lie PAN ae LOCA TT Oman 


Bo OH IVE ON 
PREACHED IN CHRIST CHURCH, HARTFORD, CONN,, 


On Trinity Sunpay, JuNE 20, 1886, 


BEFORE THE 


GRADUATING; CLASS 


OF 


eR NaMINY 3G. ith Ga 
MORGAN DIX, Spolhelod DAL ae 


Rector of Trinity Church, New York. 


HARTFORD, CONN.: 
Press OF THE CAsE, LocKwoop & BRAINARD COMPANY. 
1886. 


rae OEP eile 
eae et 





SH RMON. 


St. MATTHEW, xii. 80. ‘‘He that is not with me is against me; 
and he that gathereth not with me scattereth abroad.” 

THERE are precepts and sayings of our Lord and Mas- 
ter Jesus Christ which seem to have been intended for 
special cases and particular men; there are others 
which were meant for us all without distinction. Of 
the latter class is the statement which I have taken as 
a text; a divine aphorism, of universal application. It 
is true of every man, and of every department of every 
man’s activity. Whoever be the workman; whatever 
the line on which he puts forth his energies; whether 
he toil with hand or with brain; be he capitalist or 
wage-earner, doctor or disciple, professional or man of 
business, youth or grey-beard, this is true first, of every 
one, that he does his work with Christ, or without Christ; 
with Christ always in view, or without thought of 
Christ or reference to Him; that he gathers in the 
broad gleaning fields of science, art, and investigation, 
with Christ to lead the way, or as though Christ had 
nothing to do with him in his working life, nor he with 
Christ; and this is true, next, and inevitably, that the 
man who is not thus consciously and trustfully with 
Christ is no mere neutral but Christ’s enemy, and that 
he who gathers not thus, intelligently and conscien- 
tiously under direction from Christ, wastes his time and 
his energies, and scattereth abroad. Memorable and 
solemn is this statement of the Saviour; necessary and 
profitable every day and everywhere for meditation ; 


4 


nowhere more in order, as an incentive to searching of 
conscience, than in a company like that which is gath- 
ered together here, and in an institution where the 
business In hand is to train and discipline young men 
for the work of their life. 

I thank God that, in this College, I can preach on 
this weighty text without feeling like one who rows 
against the current, or stems an opposing tide. There 
is that in the system of Trinity College, which makes 
it, in this age, a marked institution; which awakens the 
deep sympathy of one class of society, and evokes the 
bitter criticism of another. It is a living witness to 
faith in certain fundamental principles, which, of old time, 
no one denied, which in this new day, few have the 
courage to assert. Ye have heard that it was said by 
them of old time, that “the fear of the Lord is wis- 
dom.”* Colleges, in the old days, were founded on the 
basis of religion; the footing was of faith in God and 
Christ; for Christ and the Church they existed; intel- 
lectual, technical, and moral training went on together, 
and men knew of no basis for morals except the Chris- 
tian religion. And so, the school, the college, the 
university, of old time, were places in which God was 
revered, and Christ was worshiped; nor, in dealing 
with the boy or the young man, was it forgotten that he 
was made in the Image of God. 

Again, in those days, the purpose was to train and 
discipline, to bring out powers, to form character, to 
give a general and liberal culture, to fit the youth for 
any work, to make of him if possible a full man rather 
than a narrow specialist. We know this; and moredver 
we know what a change has come in both respects. A 
rationalistic philosophy vaunting itself, and accepted by 
the impatient and the versatile at its own estimate, has 





* Job xxviii. 28. 


5 


detached large numbers from the influence of Religion, 
and made thoughtless men ashamed of Jesus Christ ; 
while, through the wonderful extension of the range of 
human knowledge, the subjects of study have increased 
until it is impossible for any mind to keep up with 
them ; choice must be made, and the right of election 
is demanded; not without reason, yet with the risk 
that the disciplmary method may be sacrificed, as men 
restrict themselves to some limited group of studies, to 
which an unripe appetency or a utilitarian motive may 
incline them, and dismiss with indifference, if not with 
contempt, the thought of general culture in arts. Step . 
by step have these developments proceeded ; the power 
of the Gospel declining, the spirit of individualism 
asserting more and more boldly the right to freedom 
from restraint; till in our own day it looks as if the 
foundations of Christian education had been undermined 
so effectually that even the great towers were ready to 
fall; large numbers of educators, in revolt from the 
old faith, are engaged in experiments of which no one 
can foresee the end; and perhaps in the popular mind 
the idea of the University is that of a place where 
absolute neutrality towards religion shall be scrupulously 
observed, where no attempt at discipline shall be made, 
where the student shall be practically a law unto him- 
self, pursuing what branches of knowledge she chooses, 
living as he pleases, and freed from all restraint save 
that which his lingering shreds of faith (if there be any 
left) or natural decency, or the statutes of the town 
may impose on his action. In view of these remarkable 
changes in the world about us, the position of this Col- 
lege challenges attention, and ought, it seems to me, to 
inspire admiration ; it does compel the admiration and 
respect of those of us who hold old-fashioned views 
about the fear of the Lord as the beginning of wisdom, 


6 


and man’s duty to God, and the value of character, the 
need of gymnastic discipline in the intellectual sphere, the 
importance of ethical training, and the impossibility of 
teaching a pure and durable system of morality without 
a basis of religious truth. This College may be by 
comparison small; other institutions may have a 
hundred students for ten in this; yet let no man miss 
the moral of its existence; let none underrate the value 
of its testimony. It was an old saying, ‘* Principles, not 
men.” And there are principles here which seem to us 
worth more than a temporary success in attracting the 
multitude; principles which the sober Christian sense 
of the community must approve, principles on which 
time shall distinctly set the seal of full vindication. 
God’s witnesses are always among us, and though they 
be the few and not the many, yet shall they have the 
last word. We may sit still without protest, and see 
Religion banished from education and ignored in the 
training of our young; we may look on, amazed and 
helpless, while restraints are removed, one by one, from 
the rising generation, and until another generation 
comes up who have not God in all their thoughts, and 
whose maxim is to do exactly as they please; but the 
day is certain to arrive when every one’s eyes shall be 
opened wide and all the world shall know that Law and 
Religion are the pillars on which the Social Order 
rests, and that when Religion and Law are pulled from 
under, the edifice must tumble about our ears, in 
uproar, dust, and carnage of blood. 

I repeat, it is a goodly sight which this College 
presents. Founded in the year of grace 1823, by the 
General Assembly of the State of Connecticut, as 
Washington College; and since the year 1845 more 
happily known as Trinity College, it began its work in 
divine faith in Almighty God, the Fountain of Wisdom, 


4 


and in human faith in the value of disciplinary study. 
Substantially it remains loyal to the convictions of that 
distant day. Concessions have been made to changes 
in the world and the social system; concessions which 
it was right to make; but principles have not been sac- 
rificed ; the foundation standeth sure. It is still a Col- 
lege of the old type; and to such we may be pardoned 
for applying the words of Christ: “* No man _ having 
drunk old wine straightway desireth new; for he saith, 
the old is better.”* Religion is duly honored here; it 
is a subject of instruction from the beginning of the 
course to the end. There are electives, but Religion is 
not among them. I observe from your scheme of 
attendance in the Courses in Arts, Science, and Letters, 
that in every course, in every class, the first hour in 
every week is devoted to ethical and religious study, 
here regarded, and correctly, as part and parcel of each 
other. Nor, to judge from the admirable Report of 
your Reverend President, is there any danger of reced- 
ing from that principle: “The position which Christ- 
ianity holds in life and literature ought, at least, to 
entitle its writings to a place in a literary institution. 
The prominence given to anti-religious writings forbids 
any diminution of the time assigned to religious studies. 
It would, in my opinion, be well to give even more 
attention, if possible, to the study of Religion and. 
Philosophy until the present tendency of thought be. 
changed or its aberrations be corrected.” + So that 
anchor still holds. The other cable is equally strong ;. 
for the College retains the old line of instruction: the 
Classics, the Mathematics, and Philosophy still rule. 
here, in their ancient honor. The degree of Bachelor 
of Arts means what it always did; and for this, let me- 





* St. Luke v. 389. 
+ President Smith’s Annual Report, June 24, 1880.. 


8 


say, you may be grateful. For to judge from what we 
observe, the time may come when there shall be in our 
world of letters, Bachelors of Arts, and, as I may say, 
Bachelors of Artifice; the former notable for having 
won their honor by an honest tramp through the old 
stadium; the latter equally notable for having, by 
stratagem and skill in threading the mazes of an elect- 
ive system, diligently shunned the classical, mathe- 
matical, and philosophical encounters, and won a title 
which is a misnomer, and to which no old-fashioned 
praeses or professor would condescend to doff his hat. 
Pray Heaven the Bachelor of Artifice may never find 
entrance among you. 

The result of this inflexible adherence to principle is 
before us, in the catalogue of your Alumni. Here is a 
school of learning not much more than sixty years old; 
in every profession it claims able and honored men as 
its sons. But most remarkable is the record of its work 
in promoting religion among us, for of its graduates 329 
have entered into the Sacred Ministry, and of these 
nine have been advanced under Divine Providence, to 
the office of Bishop in the Church of God. It would 
be an unfair inference, from this altogether extraor- 
dinary showing, that the College was substantially a 
theological school, designed to feed the clerical order ; 
the right conclusion is, that this College is doing what 
every Christian College ought to do, what every similar 
institution in this land should be doing likewise; that 
it is exerting a strong influence over its undergraduates, 
just where the noblest sprigs of action lie; that it dis- 
poses them naturally to a profession, which, if measured 
by its aims, and by the qualifications demanded in its 
members, must be regarded as the highest that man can 
embrace; that, without premeditation, but as an inevita- 
ble result of the law of its existence, it awakens, in a 


—— 


9 


due proportion of these young men committed to its 
charge, the desire to consecrate life, abilities, and for- 
tune, if they have it, to the immediate and exclusive 
service of the Sovereign Ruler of the Universe. 

This is the institution before whose officers and sons 
I have the honor to preach. I use the term in no 
formal or-conventional sense. It seems to me a great 
honor to have been invited here, and to be made wel- 
come among you; for it implies on your part a convic* 
tion that he whom you call to your presence is in har- 
mony with the spirit of the place, and capable of 
appreciating the dignity and true nobility of your work ; 
on which may God Almighty, the Holy, Blessed, and 
Glorious Trinity whom we adore, especially, to-day, 
pour down increasing largeness of benediction from 
generation to generation ! 

And what has your preacher better to do than to 
encourage, by every word which that God may put it 
into his heart to speak, the men who superintend, and 
the men who build, to bid them Godspeed, to call on 
them to stand fast in the liberty from current errors and 
excesses wherewith their Christian convictions have 
made them free; to prophesy of the ultimate justifica- 
tion of their course? Let me go on to speak, briefly, of 
the two signs or notes which distinguish Trinity Col- 
lege, and in which we deem it to your great credit that 
you have thus far resisted the pressure of an untaithtul 
and seltf-willed generation. 

And, first, as to the question of religion in our Col- 
leges. The controversy on that subject has been so 
ably.and so frankly conducted, that nothing seems to 
have been left unsaid on either side of the argument. 
Is it claimed that the verdict of the public in general may 
be against God and the Church? [reply that the hour of 
contlict is not always the hour of decision. The giants 


10 


take up arms; they go afield; they fight. - The world 
looks on; and often to discover that it is the beaten 
man who in the long run gains the victory. A sober, 
second thought awards the crown; and it may sonie- 
times be our duty to go to the battle-field and place it 
on the brow of one who lies there, on his back, stiff and 
stark, where, face to the foe, he fell. It is not the 
argument of to-day, but experience, and the long result 
of time, which determine where the victory rests. I 
listen to a harangue, delivered with that thinly veiled 
arrogance which is the sign of modern skepticism, on 
religion in our public schools; I hear, that under the 
provisions of our State Constitution, a school can have 
no religious purposes; that teachers in public schools, 
and public institutions, have no religious duties; that 
when the teacher, in his capacity as such, begins to 
exercise any religious function whatever, to exert any 
religious influence upon the minds of those under his 
instruction, that moment he infringes the reserved 
rights of the people. J am prepared for the applause 
which will inevitably follow on these statements, so ex- 
pressive of the tendency of the age, and for the defeat 
of those who should attempt to secure the incorporation 
of even the simplest truths of Natural Religion in the 
system of our State and national instruction; but the 
defeat of to-day is not final, much less decisive of the 
principle involved. ave you ever read a noble 
poem, “Jo Vactis”? It is “the hymn of the conquered 
who fell in “the battle of life, the hymn of the wound- 
ed, the beaten, who died overwhelmed in the strife.” 
On their heads shall the fadeless amaranth wreath be 
placed, 

“Who held to their faith unseduced by the prize that the world 

holds on high, 


Who have dared for a high cause to suffer, resist, fight, if need 
be, to die. 


11 


Speak, History, who are life’s Victors? Unroll thy long annals 
and say, 

Are they those whom the world called the victors, who won the 
success of a day ? 

The Martyrs, or Nero? The Spartans, who fell at Thermopyle’s 
tryst, 

Or the Persians and Xerxes? His judges, or Socrates? Pilate, or 
Christ ?” 





I repeat, the verdict of to-day on the questions which 
have been of late so hotly debated, may be set aside in 
some higher Court of Appeal by and by. From tables 
of statistics, and comparison of catalogues, with sum- 
maries of growth and decline from decade to decade, 
we may learn the state of the popular mind, and the 
condition of the popular appetite; but these statistics 
settle no principle, and decide no point in controversy 
between God and man. And so, we lesser folk, look- 
ing on while the giants fight, must draw our conclu- 
sions, meanwhile, and shall take leave to speak our 
mind, modestly, but not in doubt, when occasion is given. 
With no intention of engaging in, or prolonging the 
battle, we may offer our views as to the outlook, and say 
where we think the victory rests. On this particular 
question of religion in education, we have convictions, 
as Christians and Churchmen, founded on our faith in 
the highest authority that can be cited, — an authority 
which it is temerity, and unreason to contradict. ‘“ He 
that is not with me ts against me; and he that gathereth not 
with me scattereth abroad.” The words of the Master 
can mean only one thing: that it is folly to talk about 
neutrality towards Him; it is impossible for man, or 
body of men, or institution, to occupy a neutral posi- 
tion. There isnosuch position. Education conducted 
with deliberate indifference to God, and Christ, and the 
Church, as though it were unneccessary to give them 
any thought, is nothing less than aggression. A genera- 


12 


tion that is not with Christ, cannot, by any possibility, 
be in a position of neutrality; it is, and by the nature 
of things must be, against Christ; and to be against 
Him is to be against the highest interests of the race, 
of the social order, of the individual. The youth who, 
gathering fromm the rich fields through which he goes, 
gathers not with Christ, must inevitably be losing faster 
than he gains, and scattering, and dissipating whatever 
energy he puts forth. Twist and turn them as you 
will, you can make nothing less out of the words of the 
Master. And this is a point on which the age is more 
impressible to-day than it was yesterday; a point on 
which, whatever noisy protest may be made on the field 
of controversy, the quiet, sober Christian people of this 
country will undoubtedly end in reaching a just conclu- 
sion. Life is not life, unless it have in it a heavenward 
direction, and a reference to the solemn verities of 
religion. It is not real life; it may be animal life, it 
may be upper brute life; it is not the life of him who, 
bearing the name of man, exists in the image of God, 
an immortal soul. 

The key to this life of ours, with its mystery, its 
wants, its Joy and sorrow, its hope, despondency, and 
unrest, is in the supernatural order above us. With- 
out the knowledge of the existence of that super- 
natural world, and an intelligent apprehension of your 
relations to it, you cannot, you do not really live. Is 
not this knowledge the first that we need? Shall aught 
be named in comparison with it? Why do we eall that 
education, in which are ignored the crowning glory of 
human nature, and the chief end of human existence ? 
What but cowardice and faintness of heart induce men 
to yield, here, to the spirit of unbelief ? 

It is dreary to sit down and think what the timor- 
ousness of our ancestors has cost us; more dreary, 


13 


because we know ourselves so prone to follow on the 
same line of compromise with objectors to our faith. If 
that magnificent symbol commonly known as the Creed 
of St. Athanasius had been retained in the public ser- 
vice of the church, the Unitarianism of New England 
would probably have been as an untimely infant 
strangled at the birth. If the “ Analogy of Religion,” 
that noble bulwark of Christian faith, had been, every 
where, as in this College, the text-book of the ingenuous 
student, modern skepticism would have had an up-hill 
work in its corruption of our youth. And so, to revert 
to the distinction between the supernatural and natural 
orders, let me name another “opus aureum,” the dis- 
course, or treatise, of the learned Bishop Bull, on the 
“State of Man before the Fall.”* If that profound 
work were mastered by our candidates for Holy Orders, 
and our intelligent laymen, we should have less haziness 
in the pulpit, and incertitude in the pews. 

God made Adam, first, complete in a natural state. 
Then, he admitted him to be heir of His own eternal 
glory, in adding supernatural gifts. The loss of those 
was the cause of human misery; nothing can help man- 
kind short of their restoration; they are restored in 
Christ, and enjoyed by those that are in Christ. There 
is not a problem, of all that vex the mind to-day, all 
the world over, that could not be brought to a happy 
settlement, if men could see, accept, and act on the 
teaching of the great Bishop of St. David’s, exponent of 
the old catholic theology, on the natural and super- 
natural gifts of God to men. But who cares for the 
old learning or the old theology? Here we drive on, 
staring and gaping at the heresiarchs of science or 
philosophy, who tell us that there is no supernatural 





*See Bishop Bull’s Works, Clarendon Press, Oxford, vol. ii, 
Discourse vii. 


14 


order, or, that, if there be, we know nothing about it, 
and have no practical concern with it; whereas, it is the 
one thing with which the concern of man is most prac- 
tical and most direct. Now, an education which ignores 
the supernatural order, and has nothing to teach boys 
and girls, young men and maidens, on that transcendent 
and most urgent subject, is not an education of the full 
and complete man. It may do for him as an animal; 
it does not meet him as an immortal soul; it suffices to 
his natural state, but makes him indifferent to higher 
conditions; it teaches him 


‘‘The wonder of the world,” 


but it purses up the lips, and keeps still silence as to 
‘* All the glory that shall be.” 

It is, accordingly partial, and incomplete. The true 
educator cannot ignore what is highest in the pupil. 
He must, if he knows his business, instruct him as to 
the higher life, the over-world, the heaven where is his 
citizenship, the means to ensure his title thereto. To 
say nothing on these matters while displaying unflag- 
ging energy in every other departinent of knowledge, 
is to cast a slur on them, and invite the inference, too 
certainly drawn by the student, that they are of little 
or no consequence; that it is well to throw one’s whole 
strength into the study of nature, but waste of time, if 
not folly, to take any step beyond. Such neutrality is 
enmity to God; it is a positive, not a mere negative, 
attitude. It is the attitude of men who have lost the 
power of believing, ana are therefore religiously im- 
potent; they cannot themselves beget souls unto glory, 
and they end in a blind admiration of that sterility of 
which they are the painful examples. 

Young men, I appeal to you, on this first branch of 
our subject. There is no such position as neutrality 
towards God, Christ, and the church. Take heed that 





15 


ye be with Him; it is the only escape from being 
against Him. As you go on your way gleaning and 
gathering (and God grant that ye come again with joy, 
having full sheaves with you!), remember to look for 
Him in the fields of your toil. Gather with Ilim; 
under His eye, where points the Hand scarred with that 
print which we know so well; otherwise, ye might as 
well dismiss at once the hope that for you there shall 
ever be a harvest unto eternal life. ‘“ For he that believeth 
on the Son hath everlasting life; and he that believeth not 
the Son of God shall not see life; but the wrath of God 
abuleth on him,” * 

Next, let us think, for a while, of the value of disci- 
plinary study. Neither on that point have the old ideas 
been abandoned here. And it is well for you that it is 
so; for while there are limits within which the power 
of election may be safely conceded to the student, the 
concession of a liberty of choice, without reserve, and 
without discrimination, amounts to the destruction of 
sound scholarship, full culture, and thorough develop- 
ment; it is the immolation of what men of culture have 
held and must hold most precious, to gratify the whim 
or encourage the laziness of ignorant and self-willed 
youth. Whosoever they be, who in the providence of 
God, are in trust with educational interests, let them 
take heed to that modern mania for what is commonly 
known as ‘the Elective system,” and see that they 
order themselves soberly and rationally in their walk ; 
nor let them be unsettled by the impatience of the age, 
nor degraded by surrender to a competitive spirit, which 
though in place in trade and commerce, ought to be 
banished with disgust from institutions of learning, 

I affirm, that no man ever came to anything great 
without discipline; I affirm, moreover, that it is expect- 





*1 Jobn iii, 36. 


16 


ing too much of average young men to ask that they 
shall inflict discipline on themselves. Education, to 
amount to anything, must be disciplinary; nor can it 
cease to be so until discipline has accomplished its per- 
fect work. In our country it would be but cheerful 
optimism to say that the time when discipline may be 
safely dispensed with, concurs with that of entrance on 
college life; few, very few, are they, who during the 
school-boy years have been so thoroughly trained in the 
intellectual gymnasium, that liberty may be safely given 
them at the threshold of the college lecture-room. The 
time comes, no doubt, when a man is ready to choose 
his life-work. But it does not come at fourteen or 
fifteen years of age; it does not come until he has 
viewed the general field of action, and tested himself 
sufficiently to know his powers. We suffer much under 
the glamour of that long polysyllable ** University.” I 
fear that it is likely to become a name without a truth; 
a specious fallacy. In the German universities, men 
have freedom; but it must be remembered that they 
are men, and not boys; and that, before entering the 
university, they have been subjected to a drill, a disci- 
pline, such as many of our undergraduates never 
dreamed of in the frolicsome years of their childhood. 
It is impossible to dispense with that preliminary disci- 
pline; and I see not where it is to be had among us, in 
the absence of thorough gymnasia, and in the laxity ot 
entrance examinations, unless we provide for it during 
a part, at least, of the undergraduate collegiate course. 
The governing body in this institution have wisely 
introduced the elective system; let us hope that they 
will, with equal wisdom, guard against its abuse. 
Absolute freedom of choice, unlimited power of election, 
ought not to be granted to the neophyte; nor will the 
right sort of man desire it. Let him show himself, 





ig 


under rigorous examination, to be the possessor of 
qualities which discipline only can develop; let him 
show himself to be so well-grounded on the old founda- 
tion of classical and mathematical studies, that he is 
ready to acquit himself like a man on any path which 
he may select; and then let him elect, not one thing 
here and another there, but one line, one group, one 
well-defined round of honest work; and, having so 
made choice, let him be kept up to the mark set; to 
such election, no objection should be made. But to 
throw open your door to every inexperienced and 
thoughtless youngster, and say, ‘“‘ Come in, choose what 
you like best, do exactly as you please; stay here four 
years, and you shall have your degree of Arts, though 
you may not be able to construe a line of Latin or 
Greek, nor solve a problem in Mathematics, nor answer 
a question in Physics, Psychology, or Philosophy ” ; 
this, I say, would be to make the educational course a 
farce, and to strike a blow at the cause of liberal educa- 
tion, which, if not parried by the defenders of the old 
learning, might do that cause to death. Nor let me 
omit in this connection to repeat the words of the Rector 
of the University of Berlin, words which ought not to 
be forgotten, which no man in this land of experiments 
and novelties, must be allowed to dismiss with the 
customary contempt for experience; “That all efforts 
to find a substitute for the classical languages, whether 
in mathematics, in the modern tongues, or in the natu- 
ral sciences, have been hitherto unsuccessful.” If 
unsuccessful hitherto, they will be, we may venture to 
predict, as unsuccessful hereafter. If we lose what can 
only be acquired by the diligent study of the classical 
tongues of Greece and Rome, “there is nothing” (to 
use the strong words of President McCosh), “there is 
2 


18 


nothing in what is called our modern education to 
make up for the loss.” | 

I would not speak on this subject, as an impracti- 
cable conservative; neither would I be led on to rash 
conclusions from admitting certain facts. Two facts 
must be apparent to any one who will take even a 
moderate degree of trouble to inform himself; first, 
that the range of the subjects of study has increased | 
enormously within the past half century; and secondly, 
that the average age of graduation in our colleges has 
advanced. That means; first, that it is impossible to 
cover in a college curriculum all the branches of learn- 
ing to which the attention of our youth is called; and 
secondly, that there are more men, and not so many 
boys, in our college classes. These are facts; they 
must be taken into the account, in framing courses of 
study and giving freedom to the student to select his 
special line. But there are other facts, which those facts 
do not alter; the facts of human nature, of the consti- 
tution of the mind, of the effect of certain agents in the 
development of the powers and the formation of char- 
acter. Widely as the horizon may expand, man is still 
man, and young men are but young men after all. 
Religion still holds its place, the polar star in the firma- 
ment; discipline is still a necessity in the formation of 
high and noble character; classical learning is still the 
condition to full culture. To admit all the facts and 
to arrange our educational systems upon them as a 
basis, is one of the greatest problems now presented to 
intelligent and conscientious men. We see not how 
that problem is to be satisfactorily solved, unless under 
inspiration from above, such as is vouchsafed in the 
Gospel, to Christian men. 

Believing these things, we must also believe that 
there is a sure future for our Church Colleges, and for 





19 


all colleges in this land which stand on a Christian 
basis, which are not neutral as between God Almighty 
and the all but almighty Devil, which are not given to 
experiment nor ready to remove, with contempt, the 
land-marks which the fathers set. And this brings me 
to another point on which I would add a word or two. 
It is a surprise, a reproach, that churchmen take so little 
interest in those institutions which are the outcome of 
the system in which they profess to believe. How trite 
the observation, how often repeated, that the wealth of 
churchmen, if duly and conscientiously applied, in a 
fair proportion, to the development and edification of 
the works of grace, would within a twelve-month make 
our Church institutions of all kinds, the best equipped 
and the most efficient in the land! And yet we halt, 
or lag behind; asif the victims of some strange mental 
or moral delusion ; churchmen are found lavishing their 
gifts in every other direction, and thinking last, or never, 
of theirown. It is hard to explain this; 1m cases where 
men profess attachment to the Church, and a wish for 
her prosperity, it cannot be explained except in very 
uncomplimentary terms. Fora churchman to be ready 
to found scholarships, endow professorships, build halls, 
and equip the library, the lecture-room, the observatory, 
where it is as sure as anything can be that the drift is 
against religion, against Christ, and against the Church ; 
and meanwhile to turn a deaf, dead ear, to the appeal 
of those who stand on Christian ground and work on 
Christian principles, is the sign of an inconsistency 
theoretically incredible, but actually of constant occur- 
rence. There is no explanation of it short of this: that 
the Church idea is absolutely wanting, that Church 
principles are as a sapless stalk in a frost-bitten field, 
that the glamour of the world has fixed the eyes, and 
detains them from the sight of what it most concerns 


20 


such men to see. We may deplore this strange con- 
dition ; let us not criticize it too severely, lest the tables 
be turned on ourselves. That dreadful inconsistency 
to which I refer, runs, alas! through most of our work 
in this imperfect world; it is found in our personal 
religion, and in every department of the active life. 
To profess one thing and do another; to fill positions — 
without discharging the duty which they entail; to 
have trust funds, but waste them or fail to administer 
them to the best advantage; to say that we believe in 
God, while yet we love the world His enemy; to pro- 
fess attachment to the Church, yet never do one thing in 
all our lives to promote her interests; these, unfortu- 
nately are the contrasts presented in many a career. 
But in this particular point of liberal patronage of Church 
institutions, a better day must come, and better counsels. 
There is a future for them; we believe it, because we 
believe in the strength of our principles and the divine 
origin of the system of the Church; the day must come, 
(pray God it be not far off!) when: neither university, 
college, nor school, nor hospital, home, nor any other 
institution based on the rock of the faith and founded 
under the benediction of apostolic hands, shall lack 
what is needed to make it prosperous, strong, and secure. 
To doubt this would be to abandon our belief in the 
common sense of churchmen, and in the truth of the 
professions which are uttered by their lips, and ought 
certainly to have a correspondent reality in their hearts. 

And here let the brother whom you. have invited to 
address you, invoke on this College the blessing of 
Almighty God, with a hope that in the scope of that 
benison may be included the grace to hold fast the sound 
principles which have thus far been maintained in your 
corporate work. Here to the end of time, be the Triune 
God duly honored and adored, as the fountain of all 


—— 


21 


wisdom. Here may young men be so taught as to be 
‘ sober-minded,” according to the apostolic injunction ; 
“let knowledge grow from more to more,” yet be it 
also that ‘‘ more of reverence in them dwell,” that rever- 
ence so much needed to-day, which one age may lose 


but the next must recover, because it is not possible to 


do without it long; reverence for the Word of God, for 
human nature, for the Church, for all that is holy, good, 
and true. Never, perhaps, were strong men of religious 
principle and full culture more needed than to-day; and 
you, my young brethren, may well become thoughtful 
when you reflect on what society shall soon demand of 
you. Look on the broad battle-field of life. It is dim 
with clouds; shadow rests on the path in front. We 
whose years of work, cannot be much further prolonged, 
may be forgiven for sometimes feeling glad that we 
shall not live to see the trials of the coming age, though, 
on the other hand, it stirs the soul to very tender thought, 
when we look on our boys and girls and wonder what 
the growing year has in store for them. To meet that 
future, society will need a sterling class of men; these 
must be trained in our schools of political science. On 
them it will devolve to face problems which now 
spread disquiet through the world, and to deal with 
enemies not less dangerous to civilization than the bar- 
barians to the Roman Empire. They must act their 
part as Christians, as statesmen; they must be just, im- 
partial, wise. They must know that popular discontent 
arises in part from errors about the fundamental laws 
of social order, which cannot be changed, and that it is 
stimulated by hopes, instilled by the demagogue, which 
can never, by any possibility, be realized. They must 
meet it first, by the weapons of reason and intelligence, 
and argue it down. No mere sentimentalism will help 
us; we have had enough of gush over the results of 


22 


social inequality, of railing against the capitalist, of slurs 
on respectability, of laborious flattery of the working- 
man. If the rich do wrong, so do the poor; to each 
must his wrong dealing be made plain. The criminal 
selfishness of the wealthy may be properly exposed, and 


means devised if possible, to prevent the accumulation | 


of riches by unholy arts and gambler’s practice; but the 
working classes must be told, as clearly, that we are as 
fully awake to the wrong done by them, as to the wrong 
they suffer; and that forbearance reaches its limit, 
whenever by secret organization, and machinery of 
strike and boycott, and in a slave’s obedience to a 
despotic centralism, they make themselves public 
enemies, and endanger the peace, the property, the life, 
of honest unoffending folk. Truly the outlook is one 
apt to awaken the energy and inspire the noble ambition 
of lovers of God, country, law, and their fellow-men. 
Such does society demand, as the defenders of the treas- 
ure now in its possession, and of the order and peace of 
the nation. And those who shall be able to reconcile 
the alienated classes, to soften the embittered, to teach 
the unlearned, to win the angry and morose, to do even 
and equal justice to all, to send the professional agitator 
away ashamed of himself, and to quell the wild beast 
who shows his teeth and crouches for a spring at our 
throats: where shall they be trained, and how, if not 
in schools like this? Neverence for the Supreme Gov- 
ernor of the Universe is the first condition to their suc- 
cess, for apart from God, love, justice, and brotherhood 
are empty names. They must be well grounded in 
ethical science; and remember, there is no ground for 
that, but the Gospel. They must be well-read in his- 
tory, and obedient to its lessons; but it has no intel- 
ligible lesson for one who cannot read in it the working 
of Divine Providence, and hear all through the centuries 


23 


the slow, but sure, grinding of the mills of God. Let 
me say, in one word, that the men whom we want will 
be those who best represent the spirit of our English 
and American fathers, who feared the Lord, and stood 
for personal freedom, and upheld the rights of man 
before the law; and were foes to tyranny of every kind, 
whether from above or from below, frugal of life, simple 
in habits, and formed by the old-fashioned precepts of 
duty to our God and duty to our neighbor. Such were 
the men who founded the Republic; let us hope and 
pray that such will appear again; that they are living 
indeed, to-day, in these our young brethren, to whom 
we commit, in faith, the mighty interests of the coming 
years. | 

God bless this College! God bless all Christian 
schools of learning in this land! God be praised for 
every institution, designed for the training of youth, 
where men are not ashamed of the Gospel of our Lord 
Jesus Christ, nor afraid to confess their solemn conviction 
that they who are not with Him are against Him, and 
that they who gather not with Him, do but scatter 
abroad. 








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